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Lilo kept a firm hand on my arm. “No,” he said. “Sonny.” I could tell he was debating something.
“You’re not leaving me behind,” I said.
“Can’t,” he said. “I can barely keep my thoughts straight when I leave. Knowing you’re like this?” He shook his head and took my hand.
We hustled toward the front of the house. We only stopped for a second so I could slip my shoes on. Lilo locked up and walked me to my side of the car. After he shut the door, I buckled in, but my eyes narrowed against the darkness. Something was coming out of it. Lilo had already seen it, his hand to the back of his pants.
“Lilo!” The voice was pained and struggling. Like a dying animal crying out. “Lilo!”
Ghetti stumbled toward him, and Lilo caught him in his arms before he fell. It was like he was going to hug Lilo, but something was wrong. He sounded drunk, but like he’d drank down a dozen nails that were trying to come out at once.
I unbuckled and stepped out.
Lilo turned his face. “Get in the car!”
“Lilo!” Ghetti cried out. “Lilo…” He barely breathed. “Lilo.” Blood ran from his mouth.
I couldn’t get in the car. I was too transfixed on the hug and what it meant. It was the last one Ghetti would ever give. After he cried out one last time, his entire body went slack. Lilo’s body braced for the weight, and then he set him down gently on the ground, turning him on his side. His pocket was lit up. A phone?
Lilo’s hands were stained with blood. The glistening red color mixed with the neon lights from the gym on the cement. The smell of it was thick in the air, along with urine and… I turned my face, trying not to smell it. Tears streamed down my cheeks, because even though I didn’t like Ghetti, he didn’t deserve this.
A knife was buried to the hilt in his back, and the tip of it was sticking out through his chest.
Sirens wailed in the distance, like a crying mother who’d lost her child.
Before I knew what was happening, Lilo had me by the arms and was pushing me inside the car. He ran to the other side, slid in, started it up, and then pulled out like the cops were chasing us. I was pretty sure they were. Down the road, I saw flashing lights rushing toward our house and the gym.
“Lilo,” I said, grasping the overhead handle. Not because he was speeding, but because I felt like I could feel the world spinning. “What the fuck just happened?”
He said nothing. His hands were totally coated in Ghetti’s blood, and it was all over the steering wheel. It was all over my arms.
“Lilo!”
His attention snapped to me.
“Now’s a good time to tell me what’s going on!”
He nodded once. “You know how the war started between us. Any chance he got, he took personal shots at me. Like our wedding day. I was ordered to do something.” He shrugged. “I had to do it. If I would have backed out, they usually would have just punished me, but he stepped over a line.”
“Me,” I said.
“And your family,” he said. “There’s a reason why I was at The Cigar Bar that night. Gallo’s made a lot of enemies in this business. Men and women. He pissed off the Russians—he killed one of their men because of an affair he was having with the guy’s wife. Before that, he became interested in these triplets that worked there. Even though Mo owns it, Gallo considers it his. He wasn’t interested in all three women because he couldn’t tell two of them apart. Trust issues. He went for the one with the mole over her lip because the other two didn’t have one. He knocked her up, then didn’t want anything to do with her. She got pissed.
“She started mouthing off. Threatening him. She was going to his wife. And she had something on him—something to do with business. She wouldn’t say what it was. She was taunting him with it. I had a feeling it had to do with what happened with the Russian dealer and his wife. It was being kept quiet on my side, but there are always rumors. What happened between Gallo and the Russian dealer went all the way up to our boss, Joe Messina, because the Russian dealer’s wife came forward and made an accusation. Kirill Balabanov has a hate-hate relationship with Gallo. He told me all about it.”
“You talked to the triplet at The Cigar Bar? The one with the beauty mark?”
“No,” he said. “She wasn’t there.”
“Where is she?”
He became quiet for a minute or two before he said, “My guess—probably in the Hudson.”
“Shit,” I breathed out. “And Ghetti?”
“Pawn of war,” he said. “Gallo set me up. I was talking to Ghetti outside of the gym before I came home. We exchanged words. Then he left. Now his blood is all over my hands. Whoever was on the phone with him heard him calling my name like that. This gets up to the boss—it was an unsanctioned hit. Ghetti didn’t bring in millions, but he was still a good earner. His old man, too.”
“He’s a man and he’s dead! For no reason!”
